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The Cognitive and Cultural Foundations of Moral Behavior T Benjamin Grant Purzyckia,*, Anne C

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The Cognitive and Cultural Foundations of Moral Behavior T Benjamin Grant Purzyckia,*, Anne C Evolution and Human Behavior 39 (2018) 490–501 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Evolution and Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ens The cognitive and cultural foundations of moral behavior T Benjamin Grant Purzyckia,*, Anne C. Pisora, Coren Apicellab, Quentin Atkinsonc,d, Emma Cohene,f, Joseph Henrichg, Richard McElreatha, Rita A. McNamarah, Ara Norenzayani, Aiyana K. Willarde, Dimitris Xygalatasj a Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany b Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA c Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand d Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Germany e Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK f Wadham College, University of Oxford, UK g Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, USA h School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand i Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada j Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, USA ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Does moral culture contribute to the evolution of cooperation? Here, we examine individuals' and communities' Morality models of what it means to be good and bad and how they correspond to corollary behavior across a variety of Cross-cultural ethnography socioecological contexts. Our sample includes over 600 people from eight different field sites that include for- Cognitive anthropology agers, horticulturalists, herders, and the fully market-reliant. We first examine the universals and particulars of Evolution of cooperation explicit moral models. We then use these moral models to assess their role in the outcome of an economic experiment designed to detect systematic, dishonest rule-breaking favoritism. We show that individuals are slightly more inclined to play by the rules when their moral models include the task-relevant virtues of “honesty” and “dishonesty.” We also find that religious beliefs are better predictors of honest play than these virtues. The predictive power of these values' and beliefs' local prevalence, however, remains inconclusive. In summary, we find that religious beliefs and moral models may help promote honest behavior that may widen the breadth of human cooperation. 1. Introduction operation, few actually measure its effects directly and model it as a distributed, superordinate property of social life (see Smaldino, 2014). Many theories hold that socially learned moral norms are the Most empirical studies consider culture indirectly by either a) having lynchpin for the remarkable breadth of cooperation that humans un- participants in economic experiments make an allocation with money iquely exhibit (Bowles & Gintis, 2003; Boyd, 2018; Boyd & Richerson, and then asking what the appropriate decision was (e.g., Gurven, 2009; Chudek & Henrich, 2011; Richerson et al., 2016). However, there Zanolini, & Schniter, 2008; Ensminger & Henrich, 2014; Henrich & are a few critical outstanding issues that make this view difficult to Henrich, 2014, b) framing experimental introductions in locally salient endorse with a confidence borne out by direct empirical evidence. First, ways (e.g., Brodbeck, Kugler, Reif, & Maier, 2013; Cohn, Fehr, & it is not immediately obvious that individuals' and groups' moral pre- Maréchal, 2014; Cronk, 2007; Gerkey, 2013; Lesorogol, 2007; Stagnaro, scriptions actually influence the behavior of those who espouse them Arechar, & Rand, 2017), or c) conducting studies across multiple (e.g., Graham, Meindl, Koleva, Iyer, & Johnson, 2015; Haidt, 2001; groups, and concluding that cross-cultural variation in behavior reflects Perry, 2017; Smith, Blake, & Harris, 2013). When moral prescriptions underlying variation in culture (e.g., Apicella, Marlowe, Fowler, & and behavior are consistent with each other, moral prescriptions might Christakis, 2012; Henrich, 2000; Henrich et al., 2004; Roth, Prasnikar, simply be rationalizations of behavior rather than causes (e.g., Okuno-Fujiwara, & Zamir, 1991). Third, many cross-cultural studies Baumard, 2016; Haidt, 2001). Second, despite the fact that so many emphasizing the evolved psychology underlying morality rely heavily emphasize (or minimize) the importance of culture for human co- on theoretically-motivated scale designs (e.g., Curry, Chesters, & Van * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (B.G. Purzycki). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.04.004 Received 12 October 2017; Received in revised form 2 March 2018; Accepted 24 April 2018 1090-5138/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. B.G. Purzycki et al. Evolution and Human Behavior 39 (2018) 490–501 Lissa, n.d.; Graham et al., 2011) that a) use items lacking in local re- 2.2. Measuring components of moral systems levance, b) are impractical for innumerate and/or nonliterate popula- tions, c) presuppose that samples have the lexical equivalent of “moral,” 2.2.1. Evolutionary psychology of morality and d) do not link this data to quantitative behavior. Contemporary evolutionary psychological research focused on Here, we seek to overcome these limitations by measuring moral mapping the conceptual space of morality typically relies on scale items culture from a variety of societies and examine whether or not moral (Curry et al., n.d.; Graham et al., 2011) with prefabricated materials values and their distributions actually have an impact on the kind of that are verified externally (i.e., using other scales). For example, broader cooperation typified by humans. We first briefly spell out our seeking to better operationalize the moral domain with attention to assumptions and introduce contemporary evolutionary perspectives on cross-cultural validity, the popular “Moral Foundations” literature moral systems, followed by a more detailed assessment of the afore- breaks down the evolutionary and cognitive “foundations” of morality mentioned limitations. We then introduce our two studies. The first into a few core dimensions. While the rubric itself has evolved (Graham consists of an analysis of systematically collected ethnographic data et al., 2013), the most recent iteration includes (1) harm/care; (2) regarding what it means to be “good” and “bad” across eight different fairness/reciprocity; (3) ingroup/loyalty; (4) authority/respect, and (5) field sites. In doing so, we examine cross-cultural moral universals and purity/sanctity as foundational to moral reasoning. The more recent local particulars. The second study uses this data to examine its con- “Morality-as-Cooperation” literature (Curry, 2016; Curry et al., n.d.) tribution to corresponding behavior in an experimental game designed measures seven types of cooperation treated as the foundations for to distinguish dishonest favoritism from impartial, rule-following fair- moral behavior: (1) family values; (2) group loyalty; (3) reciprocity; (4) ness. We conclude with a discussion of our studies' limitations and dominance; (5) deference; (6) fairness; and (7) rights to property. comment on avenues for further inquiry. These rubrics were not designed to assess the relationship between moral culture and behavior. Rather, they seek to identify variation in moral reasoning as indicated by variation in how survey items load onto 2. Background principal components and how mean values of scales vary across different groups. There are practical and methodological reasons to be reluctant to 2.1. Defining moral systems employ scale-based surveys in populations where they were not designed. First, many traditions lack the lexical equivalent of “morality.” Second, We refer to “moral models” here as the content and structure of some samples struggle with scale-based survey instruments. While con- individuals' explicit representations of moral norms. If we adopt the venient for researchers, in practice, scale items can be quite taxing and view that “culture” is shared, socially transmitted information (cf. Boyd unintuitive for non-literate and/or innumerate participants (e.g., Gurven, & Richerson, 1988; R. G. D’Andrade, 1981; Sperber, 1996), then moral Von Rueden, Massenkoff, Kaplan, & Lero Vie, 2013). Third, such instru- culture is the shared, socially transmitted units that comprise individual ments are often limited in local relevance. For example, the “Moral moral models. Defined in this fashion, local prevalence of particular Foundations Questionnaire” (Graham et al., 2011) includes questions units of socially transmitted information indicates how “cultural” or about whether or not “being good at math,” having “love for one's “normative” those units are. In this view, then, directly assessing country,” being “denied rights,” and “God's approval” are “relevant to whether or not culture influences individual behavior requires 1) de- [participants'] moral thinking” or to their sense of right and wrong. Such tailing individuals' models, 2) assessing how widespread the content of items and the notion of “moral relevance” are simply unintelligible in those models is in individuals' social groups, 3) examining the re- many contexts. Ideally, scale design in cross-cultural research begins with lationship between a behavioral trait and an individuals' models, and 4) preliminary ethnographic inquiry to ensure that scale items are actually examining the relationship between the trait and how prevalent specific measuring target constructs (Bernard, 2011; Handwerker, 2001). Indeed, informational units are in one's
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